In one of the biggest news to come out of this years’ Nintendo Direct event, -Cloud Strife, one of Final Fantasy VII‘s iconic heroes, will be coming to Super Smash Bros. as a playable fighter! The Japanese gaming giant also released a trailer showing the new character storming into battle.

Final Fantasy has a painful history for many die-hard Nintendo fans. That a character from the franchise will soon be playable on Wii U is very welcome, overdue, positive news. The news was left until the end of the event to highlight its magnitude as Nintendo announced several dates and details on forthcoming releases.

With Nintendo looking to maintain market share in the competitive gaming market, the company has moved to get past decades-old bureaucracy. This includes the addition of a mobile strategy for its line-up of closely guarded characters and franchises, as well as working with third party content.

Cloud Strife appearing as a playable character in Super Smash Bros represents the latter idea and is hopefully the first of many such tie-ins. Now for the Amiibo Version.

Cloud Strife Super Smash Bros

The iconic Final Fantasy hero will represent a small but significant cameo for the franchise on Nintendo Consoles. This is an association that has been lacking between one of gaming’s biggest console makers and one of the industries best known titles.

With the rest of the Super Smash Bros. characters available as Amiibo’s, it can only be matter of time before Cloud Strife becomes one as well. Amiibo King will keep you posted on that as soon as we know more, but we know we’re not the only ones looking forward to that!